No One Else

The darkness
We are told stories about,
It is here,
Do not avert your eyes,
We brought it here,
Collectively conjured the deepest evils,
It is our job to reign the hellhounds,
That reside here,
It is our job to restore humanity,
To pick up,
To free from cages
the fallen,
the lost,
the battered
and bruised,
It is our job,
There is no one else.

Haymarket

I want a porcelain mug cup of coffee,
Or even make that tea,
To sit again in a plush chair
And discuss what this life means,
Let’s stroll through ways to save the world,
You know we both have the plans,
Let’s imagine we can solve it all,
With our poetic verse and hot drink in hand

“We Are All the Same”

We want to say
“We are all the same,”
And believe it with our core,
It’s the message we were taught from cut and pasted MLK,
We don’t see the whole picture
If we close our eyes and assert the truth of our sameness,
But are we all the same?
Not in experience,
I cannot say I’ve lived a day in your shoes,
To appreciate how life is as you,
Human, sentient, even then variation makes our experiences
Different,
Location, soci political climate,
Characteristics that dictate our place in it,
Social qualifiers that mark our skin, our minds, our bodies, our heritage,
And the histories behind them,
Must not be glossed over,
It must be worked through,
Recognized,
To see the truth beneath,
And the real meaning meant
Of “we are all the same”.

Privileges

Some can say
“I don’t
Want to
hear it,
See it,
be reminded,
Think about things outside
Of my control”,
“I am comfortable here”,
In ignorant complacency,
Not thinking from another’s point of view,
“This is my space”,
Of chosen apathy,
“I can sugar coat,
Pick and choose
what I subject my mind to”,
Some can forget,
Can remain ignorant,
Can be the fish that swim
Never aware that there is water,
That is their privilege at play,
But I cannot
Remain blind,
My multiple identities remind me every day,
And being aware is my burden,
And I know
I have privileges too,
But I count being awake
As one of them

Too Tough to Taste

We must remember their pain
Let not unease make
Discussing, recognizing “Genocide,”
in it’s various forms,
A topic too tough to taste,
It is in our history,
It is in our blood,
It is in our now,
The stories,
The memories,
The fears,
The politics,
Of a present world,
That we now shape,
It is our duty to make right,
As much as we can,
And to be the seraphim,
Watching over,
To keep a new pain
From beginning again